In the winding streets of the Persian Empire, a poor girl is chosen to become the third prince's concubine.
Aliya Farhad has no interest in the lofty ideas of the palace, the staff, or her lover. Prince Cairo has all the interest in his blue-eyed A...
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"MISS, WAKE UP! Miss, you must be down for breakfast in twenty minutes! Miss!"
Maria's voice was sharp and, in the haze of a tired, early morning, extremely disturbing. The way she pulled the covers off of me were even more so.
"Miss!" she said again, her voice panicked. "Miss, breakfast starts in twenty minutes."
I frowned, sitting up. "Maria, I'll take breakfast in my room. I slept very late last night. Sometime after midnight."
That was a lie. I didn't know exactly how long I'd spent on the balcony yesterday, Prince Cairo's head leaning on my shoulder as he slept, me spending what must've been hours staring at a slowly lightening night sky before finally falling asleep on him, too, kept up with wondering if I had somehow made a mistake this whole way through.
Sometime during dawn, just as the sky had started being dyed orange and pink, Prince Cairo had woken up, shaken me awake, and told me he'd accompany me back to my room, 'as a date often should.'
When we finally got to the West Wing, he'd left me with a smile and a kiss on my hand.
And when I stumbled into bed, bleary and eyes drooping with sleep, I'd wondered whether the reason my face had gotten just the slightest bit warm was because of the residual heat from the sun, or because of something else.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, though, I'd fallen asleep before I got the chance to find out.
Maria frowned, shaking her head. "I apologize, Miss, but you're not allowed to take breakfast in your room today."
"Why not?"
"The King has finally come back from his trip. He's invited all the women to enjoy breakfast with him and the Princes. No matter what, unless you've come down with some sort of contagious disease, then you can't skip out on breakfast."
"The King went out on a trip? When?"
"A few weeks back, Miss. He went to Arabia, and just returned last night."
"He went to Arabia?" I couldn't help asking. "Why?"
Maria blinked. "I wouldn't know, Miss," she told me. "I don't have access to the King's information."
"Oh. Right."
Of course she didn't. She's just a chambermaid. What made me think that she'd be able to answer that question in the first place?
"I did overhear a conversation, though," Maria added, "one between his trusted aides."
"Oh? What is it?"
She paused. "Miss, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell you."
"Who will I gossip it back to?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow. "West Wing is completely deserted. I don't have anyone to tell this to. And besides, Maria, I'm not stupid enough to spread information that might have me killed."
